A Rustic Love
by Odeveca
Summary: A Rosie and Sam Story, from the first moment to the last. 300 word chapters. Short and Sweet. DISCONTINUED.
1. Chapter 1

The first time I saw Sam, was at the Bywater Pool.

The spring Sun high, and the honeybees buzzing in my pointed ears.

My sister and I spied the hobbit boys dip into the pool of clear blue waters with only their skin for clothes.

I could pick out Sam's laugh from the group.

Hear the boys calling out his name to do a trick or that.

He was very good at landing into the pool from a vine hung in a tree.

I watched the way he would sometimes swim off by himself.

We were children by hobbit standards, not meant to watch each other like that, but even then I knew it.

I told my little sister Tansy Cotton.

"That's going to be my husband one day."

"Sure it is Rosie," Tansy blew the gold curl on her face, and it landed right back on her button nose.

We giggled.

The naked hobbit boys looked our way, and we rolled on our backs before they could see us.

We covered our giggling mouths, staying as quiet as we could in the grassy hillside.


	2. Chapter 2

"Well," Tansy nudged me forward from the front door, "go talk to him."

I had curled my honey ringlets with my pinky, pinched my cheeks, and washed and brushed the hairs on my feet.

Samwise Gamgee was walking up the dirt path to our house with all my four brothers.

As they came closer, my hands could not seem to relax.

I pretended to be tending the rose bush. Checking each white rose, a red one, a yellow, pretending while I hummed a tune I heard once.

"Rosie," Tom; my oldest brother, was the first to spot me, "look who is staying for dinner."

How could I _not_ notice Sam.

Sam's eyes seemed to widen at the sight of me. I was not sure what that meant.

"Hey Rosie, deary me," Jolly jumped the white fence to look me over, "you brushed your hair for once."

I groaned at his ill made compliment.

 _What would Sam think of me now?_

I muttered a _welcome_ to Sam.

When he left that night, I pulled Jolly's ear until it was a bright bright red, "I said I was sorry Rosie!"

"You ruined it," that was not the last time my brother's embarrassed me in front of Sam.


	3. Chapter 3

When it rained in the Shire, it poured.

Tansy, Pearl Took, Mentha Bradybuck, and my equally soggy wet self rushed into the only open tavern in the Shire.

We had gone to make flower crowns in the hillside, but the rains had made us run for cover.

"We should get home," Tansy, the youngest of us pipped up seeing all the older hobbits rushing around for meals and wine, "but not after some food."

"We don't have money," Pearl moaned.

"I can pay," Mentha, the richest of us, even richer than all our families, but she was too sweet to make a fuss of it. "I have plenty to share."

"Don't," Tansy's smile grew, "I can see our brothers Rosie."

Sure enough our brothers were there.

My eyes going straight to the red-hair and lovely pointed ears, and then those warm brown eyes landed on me once more.

"Look who else is here," Pearl Took whispered in my ear coyly, "should I get a chair so you can sit next to him-"

"Don't be ridiculous," I turned so my blushing cheeks could tame for a moment, "I can do it myself."

My heart was beating wildly as I took my chair.

It galloped as I set it right next to Samwise.


	4. Chapter 4

"Hello," I muttered first, watching the way he gulped the bread and cheese still in his mouth.

His face reddened. "Hello."

"How are you?"

"Fine."

We sit in awkward silence, my sister and brothers watching us from the corner of their eyes.

"Do you want me to refill your cup-"but my voice is swallowed by my brothers who are laughing at something the ridiculous Pippin Took is doing with his cousin Merry Brandybuck, drinking gallons and belching loudly it would seem.

When they are finished, I turn my whole body to him, "Do you come here often?"

His friend Frodo steals his attention, slapping his shoulder, and talking about the fireworks that we will see soon from a wizard...

I could care less.

Samwise was ignoring me. He was not doing it obviously, but subtly by not telling his friends that he was talking to me, that he would _rather_ to talk to me. I sit there impatiently, arms crossed, and my smile turning into something sour.

Tansy looked like it was the funniest thing in the world.

It would seem I was the only one that got stuck with an introverted hobbit.

Pearl found a good-looking stranger, perhaps from Hobbiton that twirled her on the floor, and Mentha had gotten to talking to my eldest brother Tom. With the way their heads leaned together I knew that this was not their first conversation.

For the whole evening, I sat two inches next to Samwise and he wouldn't even look my way, breath my way, _was he even breathing?_

He was sweating bucket-fulls, his white hand gripping the table, and he looked ready to fall over.

When my brothers were ready to leave, I left too.

Disappointed.


	5. Chapter 5

_Why was I was so disappointed?_

Not in myself.

I had tried to catch Sam's gaze not once, not twice, but ** _three_** unsuccessful times, but with Samwise acted as if I hadn't pulled up my chair next to him, and made it so painfully obvious that I wanted to talk to him tonight.

"You trying to get a kiss out of Sam-" Nick and Nibs make _kissy faces_ at me, while Jolly looks like he would fall over if it weren't for a still sober Tom that had spent the time flirting and enjoying himself with Mentha.

I was jealous of their fun.

Because Sam had made me feel like the ugliest female in the Shire.

"Don't make that face Rosie, you'll get wrinkles," Tansy takes my hand, and pats the top of it.

She tries to comfort me, "forget him Rosie! Remember what mother says," there is a hint of beer that wafts from her tongue, she is drunk too, "be picky, because any hobbit would be lucky to have you."

I felt like I had explained this a hundred times. To her. To our mother, and to myself.

"I don't want just any hobbit. I want Sam."

"You're ridiculous."

"I sure feel that way."

Despite being drunk she picks up on the glum cloud that was following me home. "Listen Rosie, he doesn't even look like he cares for a wife. You trying harder isn't going to fix that."

"How do you know for sure?"

She sighs at my stubbornness. "You could be wasting all your time with him, and he could never see you in that way. Then what would happen then? You would have let all the good ones get away." and for once I listen to her.

"Maybe, your right Tansy," my four rowdy and drunk brothers catch up with us, and so I don't get to tell her of my decision.

My painful decision to let go of my dreams of marrying Samwise Gamgee.


End file.
